The Memphis Blues
by Ichabod Ebenezer
Summary: Sam and Dean pick up a job that, on the surface, looks like a vampire attack, but after they recover an artifact that was part of a recent museum robbery, it turns out to be something much darker. Can the Winchester brothers kill something that the lore says can't be killed? Meant to be read as an episode in three acts over three days in preparation for Seattle Supernatural Con.
1. Act 1

Sam was driving the Impala, while Dean got some much needed rest. As he pulled off the freeway, Sam noted flashing lights on the Westbound lanes. He decided it was time to wake Dean. He reached over, as he made the turn, and knocked Dean's shoulder with the back of his hand several times.

Dean startled awake and took a moment to realize where he was. He checked his chin for drool and sat up straight. "We there?" he said.

"Just about," Sam said. He glanced over at Dean. "Straighten your tie."

Dean angled the rear-view mirror toward himself and straightened his tie. He reached into his inside suit pocket to verify he had his FBI badge, changed the mirror to check his hair, both sides, then satisfied with his appearance, he put the mirror back. "Remind me. Dead body, motel room… Something fishy…?"

"You weren't paying any attention at all, were you?" Sam scoffed.

"Man, it's been so long since we had a job, you said the magic words, 'I think we've got a job,' and I was already mentally packing Baby."

Sam fixed the mirror so that he could see more than the car's backseat. "Yeah. Dead body in a motel room, no ID. The victim paid in cash, and the cleaning lady found him. The body was desiccated. Coroner report says he died of 'exsanguination' and notes 'puncture marks at the neck'.

"So, vampires?" Dean asked.

"I don't know. Drained of blood and desiccated are two different stories. I thought we'd look at the crime scene and find out," Sam replied. "And here we are."

They pulled into the parking lot of the Wagon Wheel Motel and picked a space near the crime scene tape. A state police officer approached the car as they stepped out. Dean pulled out his ID and flashed it at the officer. "Agents Dunn and Murphy," he said.

The officer reached out and held the badge while he was inspecting it. He looked over at Sam, who held out his own badge, then let go of Dean's. "Why are the Feds interested in this case?" He held up the crime tape for Dean and Sam to duck under while they put away their badges.

"There was a similar death across state lines in Marion," Sam lied. "That makes it Federal."

"If it's a murder, sure, but this looks like an animal attack," the officer said.

"We'll be the judge of that, Officer…" Dean said, reading the badge on his uniform, "…Whaley."

Officer Whaley looked at Dean a little overly long as he led them to the crime scene room, and Sam noticed. "Have you managed to identify the victim?" he asked.

"No," Whaley said. "No ID on the body, and his cell phone was a burner with only two numbers in it, both burners, no answer on either. We've shown his photo around, and so far nobody knows him. We haven't given it to the media yet though. Someone is bound to recognize him once it gets on the five o'clock." He stepped aside once he entered the room and watched them as they looked around.

The room was small, with a single bed and bedside table, with a radio alarm and a lamp. Another table on the other side of the room had a chair set up next to it and an ashtray stuffed with butts. There was an adjoining bathroom which Dean went to first. He pushed open the door to find the standard sink, toilet and shower. There was a disposable shaver and a toothbrush laying on the sink, but the soap was still in its paper wrapper.

Sam walked around the other side of the room. He checked the window slider, which was locked, then he ran a finger through the dust on the sill and sniffed it. He made eye contact with Dean, and gave him an almost imperceptible shake of his head.

The brothers walked to opposite sides of the bed. The Autumn-themed bedspread had been pulled back, and a tape outline of a man was stuck to the sheets, legs draped off the side of the bed. Dean pulled out his EMF detector and gave the bed a once over.

Officer Whaley narrowed his eyes at the device, and Sam spoke quickly to forestall questions. "There's no blood on the sheets, but the coroner's report says exsanguination. Do you have any theories as to how the victim was drained?"

"We think the animal that attacked him drank all the blood before leaving," he said.

"Do you have any animals around here that do that kind of thing?" Dean asked.

"I'm no veterinarian," Officer Whaley replied with a shrug.

"Have you figured out how this animal left the room? Or do you figure it closed the door behind it?" Dean asked.

"Hey," Sam interrupted before Officer Whaley could get upset, "what's that?" He pointed across the room at a vent on the wall.

Sam and the officer walked around the bed while Dean knelt down by the vent. "It isn't screwed in," he said.

"There's something in there," Sam added as Dean carefully pulled the vent away from the wall.

Sam pulled out a pair of latex gloves and snapped them on. He carefully pulled a small duffle bag out of the vent and carried it over to the bed. He looked at both the officer and Dean before unzipping the bag.

Sam reached inside and gingerly removed a porcelain jar. The top and bottom of the jar were sealed together, and the lid had the shape of a human head. It looked like a matryoshka, but was painted in an Egyptian style, with a circlet around the hair, painted eyes, and a beard wrapping.

"What is that?" asked the officer, peering over Sam's shoulder.

Sam held the item at arms length and turned slowly around, licking his lips before answering the officer's question. "It's a, uh, canopic jar. They were used in ancient Egypt to store important organs during mummification."

"Say, I wonder if that's connected to the break-in," the officer noted.

Sam and Dean shared a look. "What break-in?" they both asked.

"I guess that wouldn't be your department, would it? But yeah. The Natural History Museum got broken into, night before last. Some items from the Egyptian collection were taken. There's a manhunt for the three suspects and everything. All traffic leaving Memphis is being stopped, the airport and train stations have heightened security. I can take that back to them," the officer offered and approached Sam, holding out his hands for the jar.

Sam carefully held the jar away from the officer, "No, no. This is now evidence in a murder investigation. We'll see that the museum gets it back when we're done with it."

"Thank you officer, for letting us in. We'll check out the lead at the museum," Dean added.

Sam gave Officer Whaley a quick smile and nod, then carefully turned on the spot and walked toward the door.

The brothers walked out to the car. "So, what are you thinking, cursed object?" Dean asked.

Sam indicated his agreement with how carefully he was carrying it. "Yeah. Cursed object. Do we still have a curse box in the trunk?"

Dean opened the trunk and propped it up with a shotgun He pulled out the curse box and undid the latches. He flipped up the lid and held it out for Sam. Sam carefully laid it inside and Dean snapped the lid shut, quickly doing up the latches. Both brothers let out a sigh of relief.

Dean dropped the box back in the trunk and closed it up. "Alright, so if this item was cursed, what about the other things stolen from the museum?"

"And what about the other two suspects? This motel only had the one guest. Police are looking for a trio, so they separated. Smart."

"I say we head to the museum, find out what was taken, see if they have any security footage."

Sam nodded his agreement and they both got into the car. Dean started it up and pulled out of the motel parking lot.

* * *

When they got to the museum, Sam and Dean showed their badges to a security guard, and were quickly introduced to Dr. Youssef Hatem, the curator of Egyptian antiquities.

"Doctor Hatem," Sam said, shaking his hand. "Could you verify that this piece was one of the stolen items?" He brought out his cell phone and showed a picture of the canopic jar."

Dr. Hatem took Sam's phone and examined the picture closely. "Yes. That was one of a full set of canopic jars that we were cataloguing from the recent dig." He handed the phone back to Sam.

"A full set?" Dean asked.

"Yes," Dr. Hatem explained. "When a person was mummified, their liver, lungs, stomach and intestines were removed and placed in clay jars adorned with the likeness of a god or goddess thought to protect that jar. It was believed that each of these organs was needed by the deceased in the afterlife, so it was important that they were preserved and protected. Agent Dunn, this item is of immeasurable cultural value, and it is imperative that you return it to us."

"Of course. You understand that the murder complicates matters, but we'll return the piece as soon as we complete our investigation," Sam said.

"I cannot impress enough how valuable this find is," Dr. Hatem persisted. "The pieces that were stolen could prove the dominance of a previously ignored sect within Egyptian society."

"How is it that the thieves managed to get away with such valuable pieces? A museum this size ought to have a top-notch security system," Dean pointed out.

"Oh, they do," the doctor said derisively. "And if these pieces had been on display, the security would have been state of the art, but we were still cataloging and identifying them. The museum believes that since they aren't on display, few people know about them, and they are inherently more secure. Come this way. I will show you where they were." Dr. Hatem walked them to a door marked 'Museum Staff Only'.

"What would really help our investigation is if you had a list of everything that was taken," Dean said.

They took a flight of stairs down, and Dr. Hatem unlocked a door before pushing it open. "Certainly. We've already given the list to the FBI, but I'll have my daughter print it out again. There were four canopic jars, several other funerary items, a solid gold sphinx icon, a ceremonial dagger, a scepter, and a number of other items." He led them into a dimly lit room.

Unlike the museum upstairs, this room had the smell of damp cinderblock. It was large and unfinished, and against the near wall were a series of workbenches, each lit by a magnifying desk lamp that was clamped onto the lip of the bench. Each bench had a different subject; a jeweled pendant on one, a papyrus scroll on another, a dirt-encrusted statuette on a third. Dean walked up to one of the desks, where someone had been using a ledger to itemize the contents of a wooden box. He pushed the lamp to focus over the box and looked through the magnifying lens to see several differently colored gems glinting in the light.

"Looking around at everything left untouched, I've got to ask: Are canopic jars particularly valuable?" Dean asked.

"They were simply the items out in the open at the time, but everything from the dig has great historical and cultural value," said a voice behind them. They turned to see a young woman with long, dark brown hair and green eyes standing in a doorway. "Taken as a whole, the collection has significant monetary value as well, though, they didn't get the most valuable piece in the collection. She walked past them and flipped a switch on a generator.

A ring of nine large halogen lamps came on, flooding the room with light. Where the beams of light converged was a huge sandstone obelisk some thirty feet high, broken in several places, but filled with hieroglyphs where it was intact. Next to the obelisk, within the ring of lamps, was a drafting table covered in notes and heavy books. With the lights on full, the brothers could see a roll-up truck delivery door dominating the opposite side of the room.

"My daughter, Raneem," Dr. Hatem introduced. "Raneem, dearest, could you print out a list of the missing items?"

Raneem bowed slightly to her father and left the room.

"Raneem has been translating the text, but it is slow going. It's in a dialect that was never commonly used, and there is a lot of it." Dr. Hatem said.

"I don't mean to insult your museum, but if this is all from a recent dig, what is it doing here in Tennessee?" Sam asked.

Dr. Hatem forced a smile. "No offense taken. We aren't the Museum of Cairo by any stretch, or even the Smithsonian, but the Memphis Natural History Museum sponsors digs in our sister city of Memphis, Egypt from time to time. As a condition of the agreement, we get first rights to study the artifacts retrieved, and this time around, we got very lucky indeed. Additionally, my daughter is currently writing her thesis on this very dialect, so it worked out quite nicely that the artifacts were shipped here."

Raneem came back into the room with a sheet of paper. She handed it to Dean, but held on to the paper when he tried to take it. Confused, his eyes met hers. She smiled, and moved her thumb to reveal a phone number written on the printout in blue ink. Dean smiled and straightened up slightly. Raneem let go of the paper.

Dr. Hatem cleared his throat. "Allow me to show you the security footage."

Dean's smile fell when he saw Dr. Hatem's disapproving look. He put on his business face. "Yes. Of course." He coughed and folded the paper, placing it in an inside pocket of his suit.

Down the hall, they came to the security room. The footage was brought up quickly, but didn't show much. Three men in black outfits and balaclavas rolled up the delivery door and moved in quickly. A red light at the top of the door came on and spun round, casting moving shadows across the room. The men operated by flashlight, picked up any items out on the tables and stuffed them into duffle bags. They were in and out in under sixty seconds.

* * *

As they were leaving the museum, Dean said, "You knew about these Canopic jars, right?"

Sam was deep in his own thoughts, so it took him a moment to respond. "Um, yeah. A bit. Why?"

"I don't know. I just never figure out when you have time to learn this stuff. If it doesn't help us hunt something down and kill it, I don't worry about it myself," Dean said.

"Yeah, well, maybe this time it will help us."

"Yeah. Maybe. So, what's with all the organs. Liver, lungs, stomach, intestines?" Dean shivered exaggeratedly.

Sam stopped. "Look, they're going to mummify the body, right? Preserve it. That's hard to do with all this gunk inside you rotting, so the pull it out. But the Egyptians didn't have this clear distinction between body and soul, in fact they thought there were three parts, and they'd all have some role in getting you to the afterlife. These four organs were important to life, so they were probably important in the afterlife. So they preserved them."

Dean considered all that. "What, not the brain, or the heart? Those are pretty important."

Sam chuckled wryly. "The Egyptians didn't think the brain was important at all. They pulled it out of your head with a hook through the nose, and stuffed the cavity with sawdust. But the heart was actually _too_ important to be without. The deceased would present it to the goddess Ma'at, and she'd weigh it against a 'Feather of Truth'. If it was too heavy, she'd feed it to Ammit, and you'd be denied entry into the afterlife.

"Huh," Dean said and started walking again. "You hungry? I'm hungry."

Sam smiled and shook his head. He followed Dean to the car.

* * *

Later that night, a nervous man stood at the window in his motel room, smoking a cigarette. He pulled up his phone's call history, and hit the call button again. Seconds later, it went straight to an automated voicemail again. "Damn it!" he yelled. He sucked on his cigarette only to find it was down to the filter. "Damn it!" he yelled again. He stalked over to the bedside table and picked up his pack of cigarettes. Empty. He went back to the window and looked out again. The parking lot was empty, and the street outside untraveled, but in the light of a bare bulb, he could see a Coke machine and a snack machine.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a crumpled ball of bills and a few loose coins. He looked over his shoulder at the duffle bag laying by the foot of the bed. The head of a baboon jar stuck out of it. He looked back at his phone, then decided to risk a few moments outside.

He picked up the room key, stepped out and locked the door. He looked both ways and hurried to the vending machine. He pulled one of the bills out of the crumpled ball and tried to feed it into the bill slot. It got pulled half way in, then slid back out. "Come on…" he said and pulled it back out. He rubbed it against the edge of the machine to try to straighten it out, then fed it into the machine again. This time it went in. Just as he was about to hit the keys to make his selection, he heard a raspy breath right next to him.

He had been certain he was alone. He poked his head around the side of the Coke machine, with one hand going to the revolver tucked into his waistband at the back of his jeans. He was startled to see a figure there in the darkness. It was wearing a turban and had a scarf across the lower half of its face. It wore a shirt with baggy sleeves and a deep V-cut with a dark colored sash at the waist over matching baggy pants.

The thief stepped backward in surprise. The figure lunged forward at him. The shadows seemed to stretch out and cling to it. The thief pulled the gun out, but the figure grabbed his wrist in a strong grip. He tried to fight the figure off, but it got a hand on his throat. He felt two sharp points puncture his neck. "No! Stop! What are you doing?" the thief yelled. He beat on the figure's chest and arms, trying to force it to let go. He finally dropped the gun and put both hands around the figure's throat and squeezed as hard as he could, but he could feel his strength leaving him. He watched as his own arms withered in front of his eyes. He felt his skin grow taught over his cheeks and his ribcage. He opened his mouth to scream, but all that came out was a death rattle.


	2. Act 2

Officer Whaley pulled back the blanket so that Sam and Dean could get a good look at the victim's wound. Dean pulled out his phone and snapped a picture of the two puncture marks inside a circle of bruised flesh on the man's desiccated neck, then he stood up and got a picture of the victims overall condition.

"Have you ever seen anything like that wound before?" the Officer asked.

"Snakebite, maybe. But no snake I know of does this to its victim," Sam said. Dean shook his head in agreement.

"Oh, we're not thinking animal attack anymore," Officer Whaley said, replacing the blanket and standing up.

"Oh really?" Dean said as Sam joined them in standing. "What made you change your mind on that?"

"We caught the attacker on the surveillance system." The officer pointed at a small camera mounted on the edge of the flat roof near the reception desk.

The brothers shared a look, then headed straight for the motel office.

The Moody Blues Motel's security camera was set up to watch the office of the L-shaped building, but also had a view of the room doors. "Sometimes tenants steal supplies off the maid's cart," the manager explained. "When I present them with the bill for the theft, it's nice to have the proof."

Though it was distant, the camera had an unobstructed view of the vending machines. Sam and Dean watched the footage on four-time zoom with Officer Whaley and the motel manager.

"Hang on a moment," said Sam. "Could you play that back?" The motel manager clicked on the rewind button, and the video played in quick reverse until the man accepted the bill from the machine. "That's far enough. Go ahead."

They watched as the man at the vending machine inserted the bill again, then poked his head around the side. The figure formed out of the darkness and stepped forward. "Okay, now… Stop right there!"

Everyone leaned in close. "It's weird how he just sort of… fades out at the edges," the officer said, tapping on the screen.

Sam gave him a look of mild annoyance, but the officer was too focused on the screen to see it. "It's got to be the dark clothing and the pixellation," he said. Sam brushed the man's hand away from the screen for an even closer look. "Is there… something in his hand?" he asked.

Dean leaned in closer as well. "Can you go frame by frame?" he asked.

The manager hit the right arrow key, tap, tap, tap. "Stop!" Dean said, and leaned in until his face was almost touching the glass. "There's… something." The image was too pixelated at this magnification to make it out, but there was a light colored pixel in the center of it's dark palm.

"Have you been inside his room yet?" Sam asked, standing up.

"We were going to wait for you," the officer replied. "It's not officially part of the crime scene."

The hotel manager held up a key and Dean took it. They walked to the room and opened it up. Sam drew his gun, and the officer followed suit. Dean flipped on the light, and the two brothers and the officer entered the room.

The table from one side of the bed had been moved over next to the window, and on it were two ashtrays, both full. The bed itself had a crumpled cigarette packet laying on it, but otherwise was untouched. There was a duffle bag, identical to the one at the other crime scene laying on the ground at the foot of the bed. Dean walked to the duffle bag, picked it up by the handles, and carefully placed it on the bed. He pulled his EMF detector out of his jacket pocket and tried to look casual as he waved it over the bag.

"What is that thing?" the officer asked.

Dean looked over his shoulder. "FBI equipment. I'm scanning for bugs, or explosives." He caught Sam's eye and made a barely perceptible shake of his head. He placed the device back in his pocket and opened the duffle with a pen. Aside from the canopic jar, there was a statue of a cat made from some black wood and painted in gold and green, a heavy item forged in the shape of a sphinx that looked like it was meant to hold incense, a collection of earrings and a large replica of a beetle. Nothing in the bag had, or hinted at, a creature with fangs.

"You'll be taking the bag again, I assume?" Officer Whaley asked.

Dean nodded. "Evidence," he said by way of explanation.

He took the duffle bag and the brothers walked back to the car with it.

Sam leaned on the top of the car before the two of them got in. "So, curses don't usually manifest like that," Sam pointed out.

"Right. So it's not cursed objects then," Dean said. He opened the car door and placed the duffle bag in the back seat, then leaned over the car as well. "Did you recognize the creature? Some new kind of Djinn maybe?"

Sam shook his head. "Those are more Mesopotamian than Egyptian. And I didn't see any blue glow."

"Me neither. And the way it just disappeared into the shadows…"

"Yeah. Well, you make some calls and I'll hit the lore," Sam said, and the two got into the car and drove off.

* * *

Sam pushed his chair back from his laptop and looked at Dean. "We're dealing with an Assanite," he said.

"An ass-what?" Dean asked, certain he had heard wrong.

Sam sighed. "An Assanite. A group of undead assassins, some say from Persia, others from pre-Roman Egypt. Some of the lore even suggests they are actually the origin of the word 'assassin'."

"Nuh-uh," Dean said around the beer he was drinking. "Assassin comes from the word 'Hashishin', from a group that would get stoned on hashish before killing somebody."

Sam sat there with a stunned expression on his face.

"What?" Dean said, wiping first his face, then his shirt.

"No," Sam said, "it's just that I didn't expect you to know that."

Dean pointed toward Sam with his beer, "Hey, if there's one thing I know, it's the lore."

Sam's lower lip curled up into an impressed expression, then he turned back to his laptop and continued. "The Assanites work strictly by contract, always alone, and they are payed in the blood of the victim, as well as the blood of the one who called the contract. They use this blood in rituals that allow them to halt their body's decay and grant them magical abilities."

"So why is it here?" Dean asked.

"Well," Sam said, pushing back his chair and picking up the half-full bottle of beer next to his laptop. "We know the deaths and the theft are connected. Let's say someone who knew the old ways was outraged by the theft at the museum. They made a bargain and set this creature loose to track down the looters and make them pay, just like in the old days."

"So, when it finishes the job, it will come back for the one who made the bargain," Dean said, catching on.

Sam swigged from his beer. "Exactly."

"So, how do we kill it?"

Sam set the bottle back down and returned to his laptop, bringing up another page. "That's where the lore gets a bit iffy. Most reports suggest that no weapon can kill one, with an Assanite wading through battle 'with the weapons of its victims still protruding from its body'." Sam turned the laptop to show an illustration portraying just that. "But there is one account which claims a young Sultan of Baghdad killed one with 'a golden dagger bathed in liquid sunlight'."

"Oh, great. Well, we'll just use one of mine," Dean said sarcastically.

"Just hear me out for a moment," Sam said, raising a finger for a moment. He pulled out the sheet of paper they'd gotten from the curator's daughter, and handed it to Dean. "One of the items stolen from the museum was called, 'Ra-el maa'." He turned his laptop toward Dean.

Dean took a swig from his own beer and looked at the screen. It showed a dagger with a beaded hilt, and a wavy golden blade. "Which translates to…?" Dean prompted.

Sam let out a heavy breath. "The water of Ra, the Egyptian Sun God."

"So — and let me just summarize — all we need to do, is track down the last remaining thief before this mystical undead assassin does, retrieve this blade, and maybe, if the story isn't just something pulled out of Scheherazade's ass, stab this thing to death."

"Yeah… It's worse than that," Sam said. "You have to pierce its heart." Sam finished his beer and tossed the bottle across the room into the waste basket.

"Okay," Dean said and stood up. He polished off his own beer and walked across the room to drop it into the basket. "God knows we've practiced on enough werewolves to know where the heart is."

Sam forced a half-smile. "Right." He closed the lid of his laptop and grabbed his duffle bag. "We should take another look at the last crime scene. See if there are any clues we missed."

Dean threw on his jacket, and the brothers left the room.

* * *

Dean had his lock picks out and was working on the motel room door with a flashlight stuck between his teeth. Sam looked on, his smile growing in size the longer it took.

"Maybe it would be easier to break into the office and just use the room key," he teased.

"Shuuh uuuuh," Dean said around the flashlight. A moment later, there was a click and Dean pushed the door open. He pulled the flashlight out of his mouth and scowled at Sam, then stepped inside. "Do you really think we're going to find something the police didn't?"

"Well, the room wasn't officially part of the crime scene since he was murdered outside. I'm hoping they only made a cursory search in here," Sam said. He pulled open the drawer on the table under the window and pulled out a bible. He stuck his own flashlight in the crook of his neck and held the bible upside down, and leafed through the pages. Nothing was written in the margins, nothing fell out of the pages.

Dean reached in between the mattress and the box spring as far as he could and swept his arm along the length of the bed. "Nothing," he said. Sam did the same on the other side of the bed while Dean turned his attention to the second bedside table. He was still laying on the ground when he pulled out the drawer, and he felt around inside it for any contents. "Hang on, what's this?" he said. Sam poked his head out, and saw Dean pointing his flashlight at the underside of the drawer.

Sam came around the bed and Dean stood up. He pulled the drawer all the way out and turned it upside down. "It's a sim card," Sam said.

"Yeah. But the thief had a burner phone. Why would he have this here?" Dean asked.

"Well, maybe the ringleader collected their phones and handed out the burners. Maybe this guy wanted to be sure his data didn't get lost if the ringleader destroyed the phones," Sam suggested.

Dean considered this response. "Okay then. How does this help us?"

Sam pulled out his own phone and peeled the back off. He removed the battery and pulled out his own sim card, then he peeled the tape off the drawer and put the thief's sim card into his own phone. He replaced the battery and turned it on.

A few moments later it booted up and Sam was in. "That worked," he said, half-surprised. He looked through photos, but didn't find anything damning. He scrolled through the phone logs next. "Here we go. This same number shows up twelve times in the days leading up to the theft. The name is just 'Underscore A'."

"Can we find that phone? There's a good chance the leader still has it with him."

Sam pulled out his laptop and ran a search. It took him a little while, but he got a hit. "I've got an address. It's a third motel across town. We should get there before this Assanite does."

"No, _you_ should do that, Sammie. I've got a hunch I know who summoned this thing. I'm going to pay Dr. Hatem a visit."

* * *

Dean dropped Sam off by a nearby car. Sam hot-wired it, and drove it to the Timber-line Motel. There were three cars in the parking lot. One was a Nissan Leaf, one was a Subaru Outback with the back seat covered in children's toys. The last was an unmarked panel van. Sam drew his gun and approached the van. No one was in it, and he couldn't make out any of the stolen artifacts. It was parked directly in front of one of the rooms.

Sam watched the curtain for any movement as he held his gun low and approached the door. He knelt down low and set his gun on one knee while he picked the lock, slowly but quietly. He stuck the lock picks in his jacket pocket and drew his gun once again. He carefully turned the knob and pushed open the door.

Shots splintered the door at chest height. Sam rolled through the doorway toward the side of the bed. He caught a glimpse of the gunman standing in the dark of the open bathroom doorway. He kept cover behind the bed, but leveled his gun at the figure in the doorway. "Hold your fire! I'm here to help!" he shouted.

The figure moved away from the doorway, but Sam's eyes were adjusted well enough to track his movements. "What do you mean, 'here to help?'" the gunman responded.

"Your friends are dead! There's an assassin hunting you down for taking the artifacts! I'm here to protect you," Sam said.

"By sneaking into my room in cover of darkness? How do I know that _you_ aren't an assassin?" the man asked.

Sam decided to take a chance. He held up his gun with one hand and uncocked the hammer. With his other hand, he reached for the lamp on the bedside table and clicked it on. The lamp cast a dim ring of light around Sam. "For one thing, I haven't fired a shot yet," he said.

The thief stood against the back wall, pointing his gun at Sam's head. When he didn't immediately fire, Sam stood up slowly, keeping his hands up. "Now, if I were you, I'd have them calling in on a regular basis to maintain contact. But they haven't been calling in. First the one, then the other, and you've been getting nervous. With good reason, because they're dead. Murdered for their blood by an Egyptian assassin." Sam's eyes flickered for a moment to the dark shape of a duffle bag that he could see through the open bathroom door. "He's here to take revenge for the theft."

"How did he find them?" the thief asked, not lowering his weapon.

"I don't know. But he did."

"How did _you_ find _me_?"

Sam began lowering his hands slowly. "I was at the crime scenes. One of your friends kept his cell phone sim card, and I tracked your phone from there."

"Idiot," the thief spat. "But you're wrong about one thing."

Sam paused in his movement. "About what?"

"They weren't my friends." The thief raised the gun again and aimed down the sights, but he was distracted by movement out of the corner of his eye and he turned toward it.

A figure that wasn't there a moment ago stepped out of the shadows in the corner of the room. The grey-skinned figure wore black clothes that opened in a deep V at his chest. His head wrap ended in a scarf which obscured his face, except for the eyes, which were the color of a dead fish's belly.

The figure advanced on the thief who fired off three quick shots into its chest. The shots passed through the figure, and Sam could see dust escape the exit wounds. The creature continued toward the thief.

Sam rushed forward and tackled the creature. He wrestled it to the floor behind the bed, but found himself wrestling with empty air when the creature melted into the shadows there. Sam stood quickly, looking around for the creature.

It materialized out of the shadows clinging to the wall behind Sam. Sam sensed it, and turned, but the creature grabbed him with both hands and threw him across the room. Sam collided with the bedside table and wall. He knocked the lamp off the table, and it shattered, plunging the entire room into darkness.

The creature advanced on the thief again. Sam recovered quickly and shot the creature several times. It faded into darkness again and reappeared standing over Sam. It knocked the gun out of Sam's hand and grabbed him by the shirt front, lifting him off his feet.

Sam clawed at the creature, trying to make it let go. He got ahold of its scarf and pulled it aside, revealing his desiccated face and rictus grin.

The creature drew back its other arm, palm held out toward Sam. A pair of snake-like fangs unhinged from the flesh of his palm, dripping venom.

The thief made a run for it.

The creature's gaze turned toward the thief. The fangs retracted, and the creature instead doubled up his grip on Sam and threw him through the window.

It took Sam a few moments to pull himself to his feet and stumble back into the motel room. When he got there, he found the drained body of the thief laying on the floor between the bed and the door. The Assanite was nowhere to be seen.


	3. Act 3

Dean was driving the Impala toward the museum. He held Dr. Hatem's card up on top of the steering wheel, and punched the digits of the doctor's phone number into his phone, glancing up at the road now and again. He pressed the call button and held the phone in the crook of his neck as he drove. After a few rings, it picked up.

"Doctor Hatem," Dean said. "We've had a break on the case, and I was hoping to meet with you to discuss it." A few moments passed as he listened to the other end. "Yes, I realize it's late, but if we don't move quickly, we might lose these items forever." He listened again. "At the museum? Yes. I'm on my way there now. I can meet you there in five minutes."

Dean hung up the phone and let it fall onto the seat next to him. He pushed down a little harder on the accelerator, getting a satisfying roar in response from the Impala's engine.

Four and a half minutes later, he was greeted at the museum door by Dr. Hatem and a security guard.

"Thank you for meeting me," he said. "Is there some place we can talk in private?"

"Yes, of course," Dr. Hatem responded, ushering Dean into the museum. "Thank you, Ed. I will be responsible for him from here," he told the guard, who locked the door and reactivated the alarm.

Dr. Hatem took Dean downstairs and into a meeting room. "You said you had a break in the case, and yet you did not bring back our artifacts," he commented.

"Not that case. The murders. We've discovered the murderer," Dean said, keeping eye contact through the whole time.

"Well, that's excellent… But what does that have to do with me?" Dr. Hatem asked. He seemed genuinely confused.

Dean slammed his hand down on the table. "Oh, stop pretending! We know, alright? Now call it off!"

"Call what off?" Dr. Hatem persisted.

"The Assanite!" Dean yelled.

"You think an Assanite is behind the murders? You must be joking. Assanites are just legends," Dr. Hatem said with a relieved smile.

"A legend, huh?" Dean said, pulling out his phone. He brought up a picture of the second victim. "Does that look like a legend to you?"

Dr. Hatem looked at the phone and his face went white. "Allahu akbar," he said under his breath.

"Wait, you mean you really didn't—" Dean started, but then his phone rang. He used it as an excuse to step away from the doctor. "Yeah, Sammie, did you find him?"

"Yeah. But I couldn't save him. The Assanite was here. And the stories are true," Sam said.

"Oh great," Dean said. He looked across the room at Dr. Hatem. "And now that's he's finished with them, he'll be coming here to finish up. Doctor Hatem didn't summon the Assanite. There's only one other person it could have been."

"But Dean, listen," Sam said urgently. "I pumped a whole clip of silver bullets into this thing, and it didn't slow down. It could have killed me, but it wasn't interested. It was single-mindedly focused on the thief. It didn't even care about the artifacts. It walked right past them."

"What about the dagger, Sam, did you find the dagger?" Dean asked.

Sam looked down at the car seat next to him where the duffle bag sat with the dagger's hilt sticking out of it. "Yeah. I've got the dagger. And I'm heading your way. But Dean, watch out. It travels through the shadows. If it steps into one, it can step out anywhere else."

"Alright. I'll keep that in mind. You bring the dagger here and I'll hold it off as long as I can." Dean hung up the phone and turned to find Raneem standing in the doorway pointing a gun at him.

Dean held out his hands. "Put the phone down," Raneem said.

"Raneem!" Dr. Hatem said.

"It's okay father, we'll talk about this later," she said, not taking her eyes off of Dean as he slowly placed his phone down on the table.

"But he's a federal agent!" Dr. Hatem appealed.

"Nobody needs to get hurt," Dean said. "Believe it or not, I'm here to protect you."

"Protect me?" Raneem scoffed. "It's those thieves that need protection."

"It's too late for them. This thing is coming for you now. You knew there would be a price for calling it, didn't you?"

"Of course. I'm not an idiot. It takes some of my blood for use in its rituals."

"Try, all of it," Dean said, lowering his hands and stepping slowly toward her. "That thing is coming back for you now that he's completed his contract, and he's going to drain you like he drained them."

"No, that's not right," she said, though her eyes conveyed an uncertainty that belied her words.

Just then the lights went out in the basement. The emergency lights kicked on, a dull red glow instead of the harsh fluorescents, but there was a delay of several seconds. When Raneem could see again, Dean was standing next to her. She turned to point he gun back at him, but he reached out and took it from her hands. "We have to go. Now," he said earnestly.

She tried to back away from Dean, her eyes wide with fear, but he grabbed her by the arm and walked purposefully toward the door.

"Where are we going?" Dr. Hatem asked.

Dean shoved the gun in his pocket and switched it for a flashlight. He clicked it on and shone it up and down the hallway before answering. "You are going to the front door and making sure my brother gets in okay. The Assanite isn't after you. You'll be safe."

"Your brother?" Dr. Hatem asked.

"The other agent! Agent Murphy!" Dean said, then walked quickly down the hallway, pulling Raneem behind him. Now and again he turned the flashlight backward to be sure the Assanite hadn't appeared behind them.

"And where are _we_ going?" Raneem demanded.

"The obelisk room," Dean said. She seemed to be going along willingly at this point, so he let go of her arm and pulled out his own, pearl-handled pistol. Every recessed door they passed was filled with shadows. Dean held his arms crossed at the wrist with the flashlight shining ahead just over the gun arm. He pointed them at every shadow they passed as they moved down the hallway. He turned once or twice to cover their backs and to verify that Raneem was still following.

Finally, they reached the obelisk room and Dean rushed forward to the generator. He pushed the primer button and flipped the switch to turn it on. The engine started immediately, and the halogens blazed with light. He stashed the flashlight and grabbed Raneem's arm again. He pulled her into the circle of light and pushed her back against the obelisk. "Stay here. Whatever happens, don't leave the light."

"Will the lights stop it?" Raneem asked.

"No. But it should stop it from popping in out of nowhere," Dean assured her.

"Give me my gun back," Raneem demanded.

"No way, sister," Dean said.

"Look, I know you don't have any reason to trust me right now, but I don't want to die."

Dean looked at her hesitantly, searching for any hint of betrayal. Finally, he pulled the gun out of his pocket and slapped it into her hand and turned his back on her to examine the room. The halogen lights and the tripods they stood on cast harsh shadows behind them. There were also the workbenches and the doorway. Dean walked around the other side of the obelisk, counting the shadow, trying to find their weak points; where the Assanite was likely to come from. As he came around to the front again, Raneem screamed. The Assanite was here, standing between two of the halogen lamps.

Dean emptied his clip into the creature as it advanced toward Raneem. He finished off with a shot dead-center between the eyes. The creature's head whipped back momentarily, but it was otherwise barely phased. Dean stepped between Raneem and the Assanite and threw a punch at the creature. It grabbed his arm, and then his shirt front and tried to throw him. Dean managed to hold onto the creature though and only ended up trading places with it.

Raneem came out of her shock and aimed at the Assanite, but had the presence of mind not to fire with Dean directly behind it. Instead, she lifted one leg and delivered a kick squarely to the creature's groin. The creature showed no sign of discomfort and turned to reach out for her. Dean maintained a hold on its other arm and punched it hard in the jaw in an attempt to regain its attention.

The creature turned back to Dean and grabbed the hand that had been holding him. It peeled Dean's hand off of him and kicked Dean away. Dean stumbled back several steps but didn't fall. The creature turned toward Raneem again, stretching both arms toward her. Dean launched at the creature's back, wrapping his arms around its shoulders and trying to pull its arms down. The creature turned around, but Dean went with it and stayed on its back. Dean planted both feet on the obelisk and pushed hard, knocking the creature over.

The Assanite twisted around. Dean knelt above it swinging with both fists now, punching it in the face repeatedly. Right, left, and right again. The creature grabbed Dean and threw him across the room, knocking over one of the halogen lights, which shattered and went dark.

The creature kick-flipped to a standing position and continued its pursuit of Raneem. This time she fired into the creature, over and over until the gun's barrel slid backward and clicked, out of ammunition. It walked steadily toward her the entire time, dust spraying out its back as each bullet exited. It reached out for her again, and the fangs extended from its palm. Raneem screamed again and pressed her back against the stone surface of the obelisk, closing her eyes.

Suddenly Sam was there. He threw the duffle to the ground and punched the creature in the jaw. It flinched, but continued on. Sam kicked it in the midsection with all his might and it staggered back, giving Sam just enough room to stand between it and the girl.

He raised the dagger.

The Assanite tried to reach past Sam to get at Raneem, and Sam plunged the dagger down into the creature's chest.

Finally, the creature stopped. It slowly looked down at the dagger hilt protruding from its chest. It cupped both hands around it.

Then it made an odd sound, like an emphysema patient coughing out a mouthful of sand. It took a step backward and looked back up at Sam. It smiled.

Sam's expression changed from righteous triumph to surprise and fear as he realized the creature was laughing. It pulled the dagger from its chest and threw it aside. The dagger slid away across the concrete floor.

Sam grabbed the front of the Assanite's garment and tore hard. Beneath the rags it wore, it's grey chest was a mass of scars, forming a rough circle in the center of its breastbone, and sewn back up inexpertly. Directly in the middle of it was the ragged wound left by Sam's dagger thrust. "It cut out its own heart!" Sam yelled. "That's why these things are invincible!"

The creature grabbed Sam with both arms and threw him to the side, knocking out another halogen lamp in the process.

Dean regained his feet and ran to intercept the Assanite. "Raneem! Run!" Dean called out. He aimed a flying tackle at the creature's back. Raneem ran past as Dean and the Assanite fell to the ground. The Assanite reached out for her, but managed to snag the tripod to a third lamp and took it down along with them.

Dean wrestled with the creature, pinning its arms to its side and keeping his own weight on top of it, but found himself wrestling empty air as it vanished into the shadows. He looked up to see the creature step out in front of Raneem. She screamed again, and the creature caught her by the arm. It raised its other hand and the snake fangs extended once again, dripping venom.

Sam grabbed it from behind and held its arm up. "Dean!" he yelled. "Get the jars from the duffle bag!"

Dean ran to the bag and knelt down in front of it, he pulled it wide open so he could see inside of it. There were two canopic jars inside and he pulled them both out. "Now what?" he asked.

Sam continued to wrestle with the Assanite, doing what he could to keep it in the light. "Describe them to me!" he yelled.

Dean looked down at the two jars in his hands. "Well, they're kind of heavy…"

"What do they look like, Dean?" Sam yelled as he got slammed against a wall.

"This one looks like a doberman or something, and this one looks like an alligator with a bad haircut," Dean said.

"That's Ammit! The one that eats the heart! It shouldn't be there! Smash it, Dean!"

Dean threw the crocodile headed jar at the ground as hard as he could, and ceramic chunks flew everywhere. In amongst the wreckage of the priceless canopic jar lay a dusty, leathery heart. It continued to beat as Dean stared at it.

Sam saw the heart as well, and started looking around for the dagger. He found it laying against the wall not far from where he and the Assanite were struggling. "Dean!" Sam called.

Dean looked up at Sam, then back down at the beating heart, a look of resigned disgust on his face.

The Assanite got a good elbow in and cracked Sam hard in the jar. Sam let go and had to take a moment to shake some sense back into his head. The creature resumed its pursuit of Raneem. The moment it entered a shadow, it stepped out in front of her again and caught her around the waist. It put its free hand around Raneem's throat and she gasped.

"Now, Dean!" Sam yelled. He dove for the dagger.

Dean grabbed the sleeve of his jacket and picked up the heart with it. He threw it toward Sam. Sam rolled across the floor, and snatched up the dagger. He looked up just in time to catch the heart, like a tiny football, in the crook of his arm. He let the heart drop onto the floor and plunged the dagger into it.

The creature let go of Raneem, arching its back in pain. It let our a rasping moan, and its skin began to flake off and fall from its body, like sand from an hourglass.

It clutched at its chest with both hands and fell to its knees. In a few moments, it was nothing but a few bones protruding from a pile of sand.

* * *

Dr. Hatem looked through the duffle bag, then poked at the fragments of the canopic jar. His expression said that he was on the verge of tears, but he said nothing as he collected the pieces.

Dean pulled Sam aside. "So, what do we do with her now," he said in a whisper. The brothers watched Raneem walk around the room picking up the halogens. "I mean, she killed three people — well, good as killed them."

"I don't know Dean. I mean, she's not a monster; she's not even a witch. I'd say this was one for law enforcement, but they'd never believe the story."

"Exactly," Dean agreed. "I feel like we just saved the bad guy. She needs to be locked away for a long time, and we're not exactly in the incarceration business. So do we take her behind the shed, and…" Dean hinted toward his gun.

"Well, look at them," Sam said. Raneem had finished setting up the halogen lamps and collected a broom and dustpan to sweep up the Assanite's remains. "She never lost the pieces she loved — the obelisk, the parchments. She could continue to translate no matter what they did. But now look at him. He's devastated over the one lost piece, and yet it was her that summoned the Assanite. She did it out of love."

Dean scratched the back of his head, frustrated. "So what? She gets a pass then?"

"Not a pass… more like a warning," Sam suggested.

"A warning. Okay, I like the sound of that," Dean said.

Sam patted Dean's shoulder. "Good. You go give it to her, while I bring back the rest of the artifacts for Dr. Hatem."

Dean nodded, then his expression changed to one of shock, "Wait, me?" he said, but Sam was already halfway out the door. "Son of a… Hey Raneem. We've got to talk."

Raneem's face fell and she leaned the broom and dustpan against one of the workbenches and walked over to Dean. "Okay. I know. But look —"

"No, just listen. You may have figured out, we're not really FBI. We're hunters. We kill monsters. It's what we do. And what you did here, it was pretty close to monstrous."

"Yes, but—"

"No buts. You're on our radar now. If you ever do _anything_ like that again, I'm going to have to do something I don't want to. I know you thought you were doing this for your father, but think about what it would have done to him if he had lost you."

"I know. And I won't. Believe me, I've learned my lesson," she said quickly. "I also wanted to say thank you. For saving my life. I am truly grateful. And if there's ever anything I can do to repay you…"

Dean smiled and said, "Well. How about —" then his eyes caught Dr. Hatem standing across the room, holding three pieces of the canopic jar together and looking at Dean suspiciously. "How about we just call it even for now," he finished, and extended his hand to shake.

Sam came in with the other two duffle bags and laid them gently on a workbench. "We should go," Sam said to Dean.

"Yeah," Dean said, still being watched by Dr. Hatem. "Yeah, I think we should."

As Dean put the key in the Impala's ignition, Sam said, "You know, it's kind of a coincidence that the thieves had unwittingly stolen both the heart of the creature that would kill them, _and_ the only means of destroying it."

"Huh," Dean said. He started the Impala and turned to Sam. "What are you saying?"

"I wonder if those thieves were actually after those items without knowing what they were."

Dean considered that. "I guess we'll never know." With that, he pulled out of the Museum parking structure.


End file.
